


in a grocery store after the war

by quietmoon



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Grocery Shopping, M/M, Post-War, jazz knows this and loves him, soundwave wants to spoil his family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:49:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28788243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietmoon/pseuds/quietmoon
Summary: When they're done with their grocery list, Soundwave turns to head towards the scanning machines by the entrance. “Targets: acquired.”Jazz follow with a quiet chuckle. “Grocerytargets.”“Mission: successful.”“Is this because I complained I don’t get to kill people anymore?”
Relationships: Jazz/Soundwave (Transformers)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 75
Collections: Jazzwave Week 2020





	in a grocery store after the war

**Author's Note:**

> [prompt](https://twitter.com/JazzwaveWeek/status/1308149263365337089): bliss / insp: [in our bedroom after the war by stars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOgh9j9fP_A&ab_channel=Stars-Topic)
> 
> i forgot to post this last year aslkjfh oops

Jazz sighs, running his glossa over his teeth in a habit of consternation as he considers the two similar products on the shelf before him. The branded coffuel boasts of authentic taste and rejuvenating properties, but the store-brand costs almost half as many credits. How different can coffuel really be? It’s all the same on some level, right? Coffuel is just coffuel — and what does authentic even mean when the substance only started out as one of Wheeljack's experiments on Earth? The entire point of the project was to mimic human recipes.

He purses his lips, sudden memories of Ironhide flashing through his processor, the hardy mech swearing as he tasted the first supplemented energon Jazz and Wheeljack came up with. Jazz bites back a smile, and tosses the cheaper cube into his basket.

A fuzzy shadow falls across the floor in front of him, and his smile widens as he turns to see the familiar frame of Soundwave. Soundwave is holding two garishly coloured self-spray sets, helm cocked in that way Jazz recognises. It means he’s listening to Frenzy and Rumble babble through their telepathic bond; the twins are no doubt pulling out all the stops, all the dramatics, all the whining. 

Jazz huffs a laugh. Soundwave glances up and catches his optic. Broad shoulders slump in a show of exasperation. “Cassettes: insisting,” he says quietly, holding up the offending items.

Jazz only raises an optic ridge, faint grin ghosting his features. “All right then.” He holds up his own basket.

Soundwave shakes his helm. “Cassettes: expected to spend their own credits—”

Jazz rolls his optics and plucks one set, then the other, and smoothly drops them into the shopping basket. “Expected by whom exactly? You?” A derisive snort accompanies the joke. Soundwave can posture and talk big all he wants — Jazz is the one who’s seen first-hand how stubbornly and consistently the carrier mech is determined to shower his cassettes in presents and surprise gifts no matter the situation. He just can’t resist. Soundwave dotes on the things he loves. It's what drew Jazz to him, initially, in those early days of truce — an indulgent gentleness that no visor or mask could wholly conceal, not when there wasn't a battlefield between them.

So Jazz _could_ stand here for another minute or two and listen to Soundwave’s half-hearted excuses before the mech _pretends_ to be won over by the twins’ whining, or he could skip to the inevitable conclusion, and they could get on with their grocery shopping.

Jazz spins on the spot to continue down the aisle and Soundwave falls into step beside him with ease. He leans down and murmurs into Jazz’s audial, modulated voice soft, “Jazz: spoiling our family.”

He tries — and as always, fails — to ignore the pleasant vibration of that deep voice against the delicate sensors of his audial system, sticking his glossa out for a second petulantly. “Blame me if you want, Sounders. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Soundwave’s shoulders draw back slightly, the tiniest little bit, that way they always do when Jazz has made him smile despite himself.

They turn the corner into the personal maintenance aisle. Soundwave towers over the tallest shelves, and his visor flashes back and forth as he searches out the next item on their list from the neighbouring aisles. _Decepticons are so handy to have around,_ Jazz had teased the first time he’d seen how comically oversized Soundwave appears indoors. Soundwave’s visor had glinted a delicious devious red as he’d commed to Jazz a promise to show just _how_ handy he could be.

 _Idiot._ People think it's the twins that give Soundwave his bad sense of humour, but Jazz knows otherwise. He's the one who's a— Oh, how did the Earth folk say it? A _dad joke_ influence on his cassettes.

Jazz swings his basket from one servo to the other, humming under his breath. He can smell Soundwave’s cable polish this close up. It's muted, familiar, _handsome_ if a smell can be that. A soft static starts to buzz in his spark chamber, in the space right above his energy core. 

As he averts his gaze from the other mech's profile, his optics pause on a small yellow label. “Oh.”

“Hmm?” Soundwave intones, glancing down at him.

Jazz leans forward. “Congate dental polish is only 99 credits. In the corner store near our place it’s 129 credits.”

Soundwave hums again. “Deal: satisfactory.”

“Right?” Jazz drops it into his basket with a happy little flourish before turning to smirk at Soundwave. “No sale can escape my sniper's eye.”

Soundwave returns the smile with a sappy loving look. Of course, only Jazz can know that, because nobody else can read Soundwave’s body language as well as _he_ can. But it’s there, hidden from prying eyes beneath a sharp mask and visor. An affection that runs so deep, that rises so all-consuming, as to fill in any empty space between them.

The realisation hits Jazz suddenly. His venting stutters, reality matrix abruptly recalibrating if he’s having an out-of-frame experience. He glances back towards the neatly stacked boxes of dental polish, down to the basket in his servos full of little boxes of coffuel beans and art supplies, up to his conjunx — his _conjunx_ — and then, down, down to his own free servo, battle-knicked, scarred, and scuffed in a way no polish or scrub could hide. A servo that demands to hold a rifle or a magneto-knife, that looks almost empty without some weapon of war. 

“Jazz?” Soundwave responds instantly to the disquiet clouding Jazz's expression.

Jazz wrinkles his nose, brow furrowed. “You..." His tone is some bizarre mix of appalled and elated. "You’ve _domesticated_ me. I’m the deadliest assassin-saboteur this planet has ever seen, and you have me pleased about 30 credits saved on _toothpaste._ ”

Soundwave’s gyros let out a tiny whooshing noise as his taught cables release tension, alarm melting into confusion. “Is that… a bad thing?”

Jazz cycles his optics. “I— _No_.” Reflex demands any slight against their life together, this shared peaceful safety, be shot down immediately. Jazz finds himself almost defensive on his love’s behalf. “Nah, of course it ain't.”

Belatedly, he feels embarrassment curl around the cables of his neck, hot and sticky in his fuel lines. Why’d he freak out like that? He worried Soundwave! Worried him enough to drop his verbal tic, which hasn’t happened since… Oh, what was it? When Jazz thought Soundwave had hacked into his personal datapad when really it had just glitched out, and Soundwave had thought Jazz was _actually_ furious instead of annoyed and flirty and overcharged.

Even now, Soundwave worries over him. They’ve survived a war and its aftermath, the fallout and the slow gruelling march to peace, and Jazz can strip away the most feared interrogator in existence's sense of cool by simply frowning in a grocery store.

It’s sort of flattering. He may not conquer battlefields anymore, but he’s certainly conquered Soundwave. He did win, in the end. And the latter comes with far more personal gratification, and fewer lonely nights. The latter comes with a loud home and easy affection and _Soundwave._ It’s the simplest choice in the world.

Hesitating for only a second, Jazz reaches up and pats a servo gently against Soundwave’s covered cheek. The metal is warm and smooth under his scarred palm. “Well, if I _had_ to be tamed,” he teases, voice dipped into a whisper, “I’m glad it was for you, my mech.”

Soundwave’s servo settles on Jazz’s hip as he’s pulled close. “Jazz: tamed? Soundwave: begs to differ.”

He huffs out a laugh. It's cut short under the hiss of Soundwave’s mask dropping as he leans down to steal a quick kiss from Jazz's curved lips.

_We all need our little reassurances._

When they're done with their grocery list, Soundwave turns to head towards the scanning machines by the entrance. “Targets: acquired.”

Jazz follow with a quiet chuckle. “ _Grocery_ targets.”

“Mission: successful.”

“Is this because I complained I don’t get to kill people anymore?”

Soundwave’s shoulder dips suddenly and before Jazz can act — oh, how tame he has _become_ — Soundwave has snatched his servo up in his own, covering it entirely. “Soundwave’s operation: pleasing conjunx.” His thumb brushes across the back of Jazz’s servo with a careful delicate touch, dipping along the knuckles in a facsimile of a kiss. “Soundwave: dedicated to mission. Jazz: surely aware?”

A surprised laugh bursts out of Jazz's voicebox. Ugh, his face hurts from _smiling._ This is the worst, what has he become? “You’re such a dork, Soundwave.”

But the words are muffled by a shyness that only the other can draw out of him. Jazz’s fingers curl around Soundwave’s as he’s led towards the cashier machine, and he ducks his helm so the mech might not catch the wobble in his expression as that fuzzy static against his spark threatens to overflow. His servo is held tight in a bigger, confident grip. It feels better than a gun ever did.

_What he has become, he supposes, is... happy._


End file.
